Thoughts on faith

What is faith? It's ultimately a relationship between two people. Where a relationship exists, faith exists. Even strained relationships presuppose some type of connection, even if it's less than ideal.

Jesus lifts up the faith of a child as a model. What does that faith look like?

I doubt there are many people, especially parents, who would doubt the reality that young children have faith in their parents. From infancy to toddler years that faith is nearly absolute. It's utter and complete dependence and reliance on the parent. They believe that the parent will always be there for them. This belief isn't based on any cognitive assertion or rational argument, it's part of the fiber of their very being.

As the child grows into the pre-school years that faith matures. They begin to assert their own ideas that may at times be totally at odds with the parents'. But even at times of flagrant disobedience, the child is still ultimately faithful to the parent. They reside in the parents' home, and they assert their own ideas only because they unconscientiously believe that no matter what happens they won't be thrown out on the street. They assert themselves, but only because they ultimately believe that their parents will keep them safe and keep up their end of the relationship.

As a child gets older, more and more of their thoughts and beliefs about the world come from sources other than their parents. The child must weigh these new worldviews in light of their currently-held view which largely came from their parents (or the media the parents encouraged the child to watch).

It is the hope of every good parent that as their child matures the child will retain the set of beliefs they were taught as a child. Doing so, in effect, is affirming the primary position of the child's parent as the wise and correct teacher of the ways things are.

It is obviously, very sad if a child leaves their parents' worldview and adopts another by, say, dating someone whose values run contrary to the values taught by the parents. The child's relationship with their parent is broken. But even though trust is broken, it is not accurate to say that the entire relationship is lost. The parent is still active in the relationship, seeking reconciliation, praying for change, seeking the betterment of the child.

Every good parent yearns the opposite to happen. They hope that when their child comes of age that they will not only continue to walk in the footsteps of the parents, but that the child will do so as an act of conscience free will and not simply like they did as an infant, trust merely because it was a innate impulse.

When that day comes it is glorious. It welcomes a new dawning of the relationship between parent and child. With the addition of free will into the relationship, new possibilities open up as the talents and interests of the parent and child can now interact in new and exciting ways as they treat each others in some respect as peers and not merely as parent and child.

This is wonderful, and there is a temptation to say, "there is a new relationship between us." But to say that is to inaccurately describe reality. Although the relationship looks very different, it is not an entirely new relationship, as though it were preceded by no relationship at all. The child's faith and trust in their parent looks entirely new, but it's not, its just more mature.

In this ideal scenario, the child had continuous faith in their parent, it just looked different at different points in the child's life. It's easy to celebrate the later stages because unlike earlier stages the child has used their free will to become more of an active participant in the relationship, but the earlier parts of the relationship are just important, if not more so. To elevate this later portion of the relationship as the only true part of the relationship is to glorify human free will and to slap the face of a parent who faithfully nurtured their child through the means of a relationship that spanned infancy to adulthood.

Afterthoughts--

Those earlier days when the child trusted the parent blindly allowed for a foundation to be built that the child could later stand on. As an adopted child who has recently found their birthparent will tell you, it may be exciting to discover your birthparent, but it will take years to have as much faith in them as they do of their adopted parents, a process prolonged by the fact that it is happening at a time when the child can think critically about a parent's intentions, whereas had the relationship began in childhood the child would have trusted them implicitly.

Obviously, God wants us to see a connection between the nature of our relationship to our parents and our Father Above.

Einstein's Description of Theologians?

Been reading Walter Isaacson’s Einstein bio. It’s awesome. This morning read this thought-provoking quote from Einstein and couldn’t help but think that this idea holds the key to solve the disconnect between science and religion in popular thought.

"Some scientific theories depend primarily on induction: analyzing a lot of experimental findings and then finding theories that explain the empirical patterns. Others depend more on deduction: starting with elegant principles and postulates that are embraced as holy and then deducting the consequences from them. All scientists blend both approaches to differing degrees. Einstein had a good feel for experimental findings, and he used this knowledge to find certain fixed points with which he could construct a theory. But his emphasis was primarily on the deductive approach... ‘The simplest picture one can form about the creation of an empirical science is along the lines of an inductive method. Individual facts are selected and grouped together so that the laws that connect them become apparent. However, the big advances in scientific knowledge originated in this way only to a small degree. The truly great advances in our understanding of nature originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to induction. The intuitive grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the postulation of hypothetical basic laws. From these laws, he derives his conclusions.’” (Isaacson, Einstein, p.117/118)

"’The deeper we penetrate and the more extensive our theories become,’ [Einstein] would declare toward the end of his life, ‘the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine these theories.’" (p. 118)

Most often people dismiss religion as being relative and therefore not authoritative because it is unverifiable, not testable. But theologians are attempting to do the same thing Einstein sought with his deductive thought experiments: move humanity great leaps forward in their understanding of creation. Theologians shouldn't ignore the evidence of life any more than Einstein was ignoring the experiments of scientists of his day (he wasn't). But experimentation is not the key to getting human beings to understand the universe, as Einstein said, deductive reasoning is. Einstein seems to stand as the preeminent example of a critical thinker who models how rational deductive reasoning should proceed.

C.S. Lewis used thought experiments too. The difference between someone like Lewis and someone like Einstein is not really in terms of process, but rather in terms of semantics. Theologians don't say they discover things about God's way, and the scientist doesn't say that they discover things about God's way. But in reality, they're both describing the exact same things. Both theologians and scientists who rely on Einstein's model are both using deductive reasoning to determine the reality of creation. If they're good at their job, neither is doing so to with disregard to the facts of the universe, but they are attempting to move human understanding ahead of where inductive science and everyday experience currently take us.

On Baptism

Found these baptism quotes that I thought were pretty cool...obviously, I'm prone to most things written by Tom (NT) Wright, but even so, I thought these were worth noting. Click the link to see more quotes.

On Baptism | Christianity Today:
"WHETHER BAPTIZED as children or adults, our baptism signifies primarily what God has graciously done for us, and it is upon this that faith rests. It can be argued that the two forms of baptism—infant and adult—together express the full meaning of baptism better than each would alone. In other words, their meanings are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding

WHEN PEOPLE submit to Christian baptism, they die with the Messiah and are raised with him into a new life. This means, first and foremost, a change of status. … Once you are baptized, of course, you can try to shirk or shrug off your new responsibilities. You can pretend you don't after all have a new status. … But what you can't do is get unbaptized again.
Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone, Romans: Part One"